EU innovation convergence 50 years away, reveals new scoreboard
Although many of the EU countries currently lagging behind in terms of innovation show signs of improvement, based on current performance and growth rates it will take some of them more than 50 years to catch up, according to the latest edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). Of those countries whose innovation performance falls into the 'catching up' category (Slovenia, Hungary, Portugal, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus and Malta) and 'losing ground' category (Estonia, Spain, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Turkey), only Hungary, Slovenia and Italy are expected to achieve the EU average within 20 years. 'For the other countries this process will take even longer, for some even more than 50 years. This also means that it would take more than 50 years for the EU25 to catch up to the US level of innovation performance,' the scoreboard confirmed. Of the other two categories of performer, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany are considered 'leading countries', while France, Luxembourg, Ireland, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Italy and Iceland all display an 'average performance'. 'The innovation scoreboard clearly shows that we have to do more for innovation. Boosting innovation is a major pillar in our Partnership for Growth and Jobs. There is evidence that more innovative sectors tend to have higher productivity growth rates,' said Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen. This year's EIS, the fifth edition since its launch in 2001, uses a revised list of indicators and methodology developed in cooperation with the Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). According to the Commission, the new methodology captures more dimensions of a country's innovation performance while still providing continuity with previous editions of the scorecard. One of the key developments is the inclusion of an input/output approach. This enables a better understanding of the transformation of innovation assets, such as education and investment in research and development and the resulting innovation returns, including business turnover from new products, employment in high tech sectors and patents. 'Although for many countries relative input performance is close to relative output performance, for several countries large differences in relative performance is observed,' notes the report. A possible explanation for the differences in input and output within a country, whether it is positive or negative, is the receptiveness of a country's population to new products and services. Among the ten European countries with the highest proportion of citizens attracted by innovative products or services, nine have an above average output to input rate, while seven of the countries where population readiness for innovation is lowest have a below average output to input rate. The 26 individual indicators used in the EIS are grouped into five categories: innovation drivers, knowledge creation, innovation and entrepreneurship, applications and intellectual property rights (IPR). The Commission says there is evidence that an even level of performance across these five indicators is a positive driver of overall innovative performance, and therefore, countries lagging behind should focus policy responses towards improving all of these dimensions rather than focusing on areas of strength. Finally, while there is scant evidence that innovative performance drives economic performance at a national level ('Apparently GDP growth is influenced by so many parameters that the impact of innovation is hardly measurable,' says the report), at sectoral level it appears that the most innovative sectors have higher growth rates of labour productivity when measured according to turnover per employee.